1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to paper/document handling apparatus and more particularly to an automatic paper document reloader/elevator apparatus for cut sheet printing.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Paper handling is generally considered to be one of the more difficult problems associated with the printing art. This is mainly due to the nature of the material; the flimsy, relatively unstable construction and the fact that when stacked in fairly large bundles the feeding of a single sheet is difficult to control.
In addition to the foregoing when a stack of sheets is exhausted or depleted the problems associated with reloading the stack become very involved. Usually, it requires that the apparatus be stopped or shut down i.e. "turned off", after which a fresh stack of material may then be loaded into the apparatus for resumption of feeding, printing, copying, and etc. In any case, any stoppage is time consuming and requires the attendance of an operator to detect the "empty" status of the feeding device. Since reloading cannot be performed "on the fly" certain down time of the machine is to be expected. This is inefficient and requires that the operator be on standby condition in order to "anticipate" the termination of feeding and thus be available to reload a fresh supply of material into the apparatus.